Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün / mefā‘īlün / mefā‘īlün / mefā‘īlün

Ẓarāfet ‘ilmini cānā miyānıñdan mı ögrendiñ
Nezāket fennini ey gül dehānıñdan mı ögrendiñ
Bu dürli dürli kāfirlikler ile ẓulm-i bī-dādı
A fettānım o çeşm-i bī-emānıñdan mı ögrendiñ
Bu Vāżıḥ bendeñi ḫancerle ur öldür dimez kimse
Bunı ey nev-cüvānım kendi yanıñdan mı ögrendiñ

In English

1. My dear, did you learn the science of elegance from your waist; O rose, did you learn the art of delicacy from your mouth?

2. This merciless cruelty with all its kinds of infidelity, O my temptress, did you learn it from that pitiless eye of yours?

3. No one says "Strike your servant Vâzıh with a dagger and kill him"; O my young one, did you learn this by yourself?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is the fourth piece in the Mukatta‘ât section of the Dîvânçe, and Babaarslan counts it as an incomplete (nâ-tamâm) ghazal. It has three couplets and is written in the hezec pattern "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün". The redif (refrain word) is "-ıñdan mı ögrendiñ" (did you learn from your…); the rhyme rests on the "-ān" of "miyān, dehān, bī-emān, yan". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The whole poem consists of questions addressed to the beloved, and every line ends with "did you learn from…". This form of question allows the poem to be written in a plain, conversational language. Özçakmak says that in the Dîvânçe Vâzıh mostly used a plain, clear and unaffected language and gives the opening couplet of this piece as an example. In the first couplet the words "ẓarāfet" and "nezāket" carry, besides elegance and delicacy, the idea of fineness and thinness. In divan poetry the beloved's waist is imagined so thin and the mouth so small that both scarcely exist; that is why the poet says elegance was learned from the waist and delicacy from the mouth.

In the second couplet the beloved's "infidelities", that is, his cruelties, are traced to his pitiless eye; in divan poetry the eye is like a weapon that kills the lover. The last couplet is a reproach mixed with jest. No one has told the beloved to kill Vâzıh; the beloved has thought up this cruelty on his own. The phrase "kendi yanıñdan" carries the meaning, still current in Turkish, of "by oneself, without asking anyone".

Bibliography

Academic studies

  • Giyasi Babaarslan, "Amasyalı Vâzıh ve Dîvânçesi", Akademik Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 5(4), 2021, pp. 1922-1984 (text of the poem: p. 1962; Mustafa Vâzıh, Dîvânçe, Ankara University, Department of Manuscripts, Mustafa Con A 495/III, fol. 68b). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/akaded/article/993264
  • Giyasi Babaarslan, "Amasyalı Vâzıh ve Dîvânçesi", Akademik Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 5(4), 2021, pp. 1924-1930 (life and description of the Dîvânçe). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/akaded/article/993264
  • Fatma Özçakmak, "Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi ve Dîvânçe'si", Kesit Akademi Dergisi, 7(26), 2021, pp. 255-278, p. 270.

Online sources